ng his
soldiers if they get in our way, do you see?'

"'Hist!' says General Mary. 'The commandant is with us, heart and
soul. He will aid us. He is one of us.'

"We made all the arrangements that afternoon. There was a buck coon
from Georgia in Salvador who had drifted down there from a busted-up
coloured colony that had been started on some possumless land in
Mexico. As soon as he heard us say 'barbecue' he wept for joy and
groveled on the ground. He dug his trench on the plaza, and got half
a beef on the coals for an all-night roast. Me and Maxy went to see
the rest of the Americans in the town and they all sizzled like a
seidlitz with joy at the idea of solemnizing an old-time Fourth.

"There were six of us all together--Martin Dillard, a coffee
planter; Henry Barnes, a railroad man; old man Billfinger, an
educated tintype taker; me and Jonesy, and Jerry, the boss of the
barbecue. There was also an Englishman in town named Sterrett, who
was there to write a book on Domestic Architecture of the Insect
World. We felt some bashfulness about inviting a Britisher to help
crow over his own country, but we decided to risk it, out of our
personal regard for him.

"We found Sterrett in pajamas working at his manuscript with a
bottle of brandy for a paper weight.

"'Englishman,' says Jones, 'let us interrupt your disquisition
on bug houses for a moment. To-morrow is the Fourth of July. We
don't want to hurt your feelings, but we're going to commemorate
the day when we licked you by a little refined debauchery and
nonsense--something that can be heard above five miles off. If you
are broad-gauged enough to taste whisky at your own wake, we'd be
pleased to have you join us.'

"'Do you know,' says Sterrett, setting his glasses on his nose, 'I
like your cheek in asking me if I'll join you; blast me if I don't.
You might have known I would, without asking. Not as a traitor to my
own country, but for the intrinsic joy of a blooming row.'

"On the morning of the Fourth I woke up in that old shanty of an
ice factory feeling sore. I looked around at the wreck of all I
possessed, and my heart was full of bile. From where I lay on my
cot I could look through the window and see the consul's old ragged
Stars and Stripes hanging over his shack. 'You're all kinds of a
fool, Billy Casparis,' I says to myself; 'and of all your crimes
against sense it does look like this idea of celebrating the Fourth
should receive the award of demer